Participants in a state transportation summit Friday repeatedly sang that refrain, but this time added a new verse: The state's leaders and residents need to think more about unconventional financing partnerships, such as alliances with private businesses that would share construction costs and financial risk in exchange for revenue from toll roads.

The summit called by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert drew about 300 participants - including the entire Utah congressional delegation - to the Davis Conference Center. While some panel discussions included transit options and land-use planning, the heaviest emphasis was on the type of public-private partnerships already at work in 23 states, especially Texas and California.

Toll roads increasingly are being characterized as the only alternative to no roads at all, especially as gas-tax revenues aren't keeping up with demand. Federal funds also are expected to dwindle, leaving Utah policymakers wondering where to find the $16.5 billion needed during the next 25 years to keep traffic flowing.

In his opening remarks, Huntsman called for "a new paradigm" for road-funding. So did Herbert.

"We ought not expect a different outcome unless we make a paradigm shift," he said. "It's working in other places. Whether it will work in Utah, I don't know."

While they won't pay for everything, public-private partnership ideas are gaining traction with free-market devotees such as Rep. John Dougall. The American Fork Republican views highway congestion as clear an indication of failure to engage the private sector as Communist bread lines.

Even cities are working out such deals. Chicago recently sold a short span of toll road to a transportation consortium that in turn put the revenues in a portfolio attractive to pension-fund managers looking for alternatives to bonds and securities.

Panelist Kathleen Brown, the former California state treasurer and current West Coast regional head of Goldman, Sachs & Co. municipal finance division, said Chicago received $1.83 billion for a 7.8-mile stretch of the Chicago Skyway.

The city and the Australian and Spanish global transportation firms that bought the road negotiated two controlling documents.

A 320-page operating conditions document detailed everything that would be expected of the new owners, from maintenance schedules to picking up dead squirrels, while the 120-page concessions document set out explicit rules on how the toll would increase from the current $2 to $5 over a specific length of time.

Texas has taken a similar tack, with public officials determining what tolls would be reasonable, then including the detail in controlling documents to protect the public interest. Joking that her father, former California Gov. Pat Brown - the prime mover behind the landmark construction of the state's massive freeway system - was rolling in his grave, Brown said growing interest in private ownership of roadways means they get built more quickly.

State Sen. Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse, an advocate of toll roads, said such schemes could produce windfall funds for Utah. But what's most important, he said, is "you can build now."

With $16.5 billion needed during the next 25 years to keep commerce and traffic moving, the state's 24.5-cent-per-gallon gas tax is looking measly. A nickel-per-gallon bump, which seems politically impossible, still wouldn't dent the problem. Besides, if futurists are correct, gasoline-powered vehicles eventually will have to go the way of the buggy whip.

"The gas tax isn't going to cut it," Killpack said.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are dipping into the general fund to augment the gas tax and also have taken money from the Centennial Highway Fund, a $3.35 billion, 11-year funding mechanism for statewide road building and repair established in 1997 after rural lawmakers complained about their constituents paying taxes to rebuild Interstate 15 in Salt Lake County.

House Speaker Greg Curtis, who backed the fund at the time, now says there needs to be more a sense of everyone chipping in and basing road-construction priorities on need instead of political jurisdiction.